
Glass ^^Su±SL 



7 



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THE SOLID SOUTH: ^^ 

~77>V 

ITS POLITICAL SPIRIT, METHODS, AND PURPOSES. 



GENERAL JOHN BEATTY 

AT TROYJOHIO, AUGUST 21, 1880. 

Fkllow-Citjzens : The people of the Northern States of the American Union be- 
lieve in free speech, and practice it. You find here the Domocrat and Republican asso- 
ciated in business ; occupying the same pews in churches : on terms ot closest intimacy 
in society ; near neighbors and dear friends who confide in and respect each other. 
When they want to buy they never stop to ask the political views of the seller. When 
they need the services of a phj sician, lawyer, teacher, mechanic, or laborer, they em- 
ploy him without regard to his political convictions. They recognize and respect his 
right to think, speak, and vote as his own conscience and judgment may dictate. In 
short, the people of the North bow reverently to that principle in our Republican gov- 
ernment which irsists upon the broadest suflrage and the largest liberty. They will not 
knowingly trample upon the rights of others, and will not, without protest, allow their 
own to be disregarded. Thej'^ demand that respect and consideration for their own 
opinions which they cheerfully accord to the convictions of others. They protect the 
rights of the humblest and vilest, because they thus render their own more secure. They 
know that wliatever privileges are denied to the poorest and weakest may, in ^[ae, be 
denied to themselves and their children. Whoever and whatever, therefore, offends the 
least of these offends also the greatest. 

This trait of political tolerance w^hich so distinguishes the North is the product of her 
schools and churches.. As men become wiser and better they attain clearer perceptions 
of their own public and private duties, and of the personal and political rights of 
others, and observe more nearly that injunction of the Savior, " Do unto others as you 
would have others do unto you." 

These general remarks indicate sufficiently the spirit of fairness which pervades the 
North. How is it with the Southern Stales which now propose to assume control of the 
nationf Does the samesinritof political tolerance prevail there? Do Democrats and Repub- 
licans join hands in business there ; respect each other's political convictions ; encourage 
free speech and free political action ; invit^ open discussion of national issues ; treat 
political opponents conrteously and kiudly; insist upon a free ballot and fair count? If so, 
no harm could result from placing the vast interests of the nation in its keeping — in the 
hands of the party of which the Solid South would have absolute control. But if on 
the contrary this spirit of political tolerance, this respect for the natural and political 
rights of men, does not exist there, then every Northern man should be on his guard ; 
and if, upon farther investigation, it should be found that a spirit of political intoler- 
ance and proscription pervades the South, which disregards the Constitution, tramples 
upon the legal rights of the citizen, crushes out free 8i)eech and independent political 
actioti, substitutes the shot gun and bull whip for dispassionate discussion, resorts to 
intimidation, scourging, and murder for the attainment of political ends — in short, if 
this be the condition of public sentiment in the Solid South then it behooves honest men 
to not only be on their guard, but to arouse themselves and to battle earnestly against 
the danger which threatens free institutions. 

My friends, 1 know the power of prejudice and the strength of party ties. I know 
how difficult it is to make men believe what they do not desire to believe. I understand 
how apt they are to regard unfavorable testimony with suspicion, to distrust the mo- 
tives ot the speaker who tells unpleasant truths, to grasp at any ridiculous fabrica- 
tion which encourages their preconceived notions and so justifies their judgment. But 
let me assure you that the statements I shall make to-night can be substantiated and 
established by as good evidence as that upon which the titles to your farms and homes 
are based. It would take a week, and perhaps a month, to read all the testimony, but if 
you will hear me in fairness, and with an honest desire to accept the truth and profit by it, 
I shall prove to you that a spirit of revengeful vindictiveness against the North, against 
the later amendments to the Constitution, against the freedmen, dominates the South 






and that in that section there is no free speech, no honest balkit, no fair elections, no just 
regard for the political rights and privileges of the citizen, no acceptance of the re- 
sults of the war, but on the contrary, that the Federal laws are nullitied, the freedmen 
disfranchised, men of northern birth insulted, threatened, and often murdered, and 
that a spirit of murdfrous, inloleraile, proscriiyiice despotism rules the section %vhich, if the 
Democratic party succeeds, ivill have absolute control of the nation. 

THE POLITICAL SPIRIT WHICH ANIMATES THE SOUTH. 

The first witness I shall call to testify as to the spirit of the South, is General George 
H. Thomas, "the rock of Chickamauga." Will any soldier or citizen of the North ques- 
tion what he may say, or what he may have said? When interrogated by a Congres-' 
sional Committee as to the cature and objects of certain secret Democratic or^auizations 
which in 1866 began to multiply and extend over the South, he replied as follows : 

"To embarrass the Government of the United States in the proper administration of 
the affairs of the country, by endeavoring or making strong efforts to gain very import- 
ant concessions to the people of the Sonth ; if pousible, to repudiate the national debt 
incurred in consequence of the rebellion, or to gain such an ascendancy in Congress as 
to make provision for the assumption by Congress of the debt incurred by the rebel gov- 
ernment; also, in case the United States Government can Le involved in a foreign war, 
to watch their opportunity and take advantage of the first that occurs to strike for the 
independence of the States lately in rebellion." 

Again, in his official report for 1868, two years later, ho says of Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky, " crime is committed because public opinion favors it, or, at least, acquiesces in 
it. The local laws are enforced or not, according to the controlling opinions of the com- 
munity ; a criminal who is popular with the mob can set law at defiance, but if a man 
is only charged with or suspected of crime, if he is inimical to the community, he is 
like to be hanged to the nearest tree, or shot down at his own door." 

Again : " Violence is openly talked of. The editorials of the public press are such as 

to create r^"j uiost intense hatred in the breasts of ex-rebels and their sympathizers. The 

effect f)i ims is to cause disturbance throughout the State, by inciting the ruffianly por- 

+'■■ of 'hi" 'lass of citizens to murder, rob, and maltreat white Unionists and colored 

lities where there are no United States troops stationed. The local author- 

•> not the will, and more often have not the power, to suppress or prevent 

i.tical leaders have insisted that this condition of affairs was attributable 

J to the northern men who, after the war, settled in the fc^«uth, and secondarily 

t" ,ue errors and oppressive legislation of a Republican Congress. But what does Gen 

eral Thomas, who was on the ground, and in position to form an accurate opinion, say 

on the subject ? I read from his report : 

"The controlling cause of the unsettled condition of affairs in the department is that 
the greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been 
to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality, and all 
the calendar of the virtues of freedom, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for 
southern independence failed. This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, 
whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, 
so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with 
the defenders of the Government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own 
stains, a species of self- forgiveness amazing in its effrontry, when it is considered that 
life and property — ^justly forfeited by the laws of the country, of war, and of nations — 
through the magnamity of the Government and people, were not exacted from them." 

The next witness I shall present to testify as to the spirit of the South, is General 
Howard, the Havelock of the national armies, a consistent christian and a gallant 
soldier, who lost an arm in the service, and distinguished himself on many of the great 
battle fields of the war. Those who know him personally will never question any state- 
ment of fact he may make ; those who know of him must accord implicit confidence to 
what he says, and those who neither know him nor know of him should, at least, not 
dispute his statements, until they have taken the trouble to inform themselves as to hie 
character for truthfulness, and all the circumstances bearing upon the matters of which 
he speaks. 

From his report on the condition of affairs in Georgia for 1863, I clip the following : 

"Numerous outrages have been perpetrated upon freed people in this State, some of 
them remarkable for atrocity. 'Louisville, Jefferson county, in November, a mob ar- 
rested a colored man and, binding him to a stake, piled fagots about him and actually 
burned him alive ' In other instances freedmen have been tied up and whipped, and 
their houses and property burned. In the majority of cases the civil authorities have 
failed to punish the criminals." 

Again, in 1869, he says : 

"In many parts of the State there is practically no government. The worst of crimes i 



are committed, and no attempt is made to punish those who commit them. Murders 
have been and are frequent ; the abuse in various ways of the blacks is too common to 
.^excite notice. There can be uj doubt of the existence of numerous insurrectionary 
., orgauizalious known as 'Ku-Klux Klans,' who, shielded by their disguise, by the secresy 
.of their njovements. and by the terror which they inspire, perpetrate crime with im- 
'punity. TheTe is great reasan to believe that in some cases local magistrates are in 
sympathy with the members of these organizations." 
^ General Terry, the hero of Fort Fisher, in his report for 1869, says of southern Ala- 
bama : 

"lu many localities life and property are very insecure. Crimes are frequent, and 
the civil authorities are utterly poweslass to prevent or punish them, or are careless of 
their duties." 

The nex^ witness is General Grant. Do you think that with all the facts before him 
he would willfnlly misrepresent the Southern people ? March 2 ?, 1871 — three years later 
than the period of which General Thomas speaks — he sent the following message : 

" To the Senate and Houae of Representatives: 

"A condition of a^airs now exists in some of the States of the Union rendering life 
and property insecure and the carrying of the mails and the collection of the revenue 
dangerous. The proof that such a condition of affairs exists in some localities is now 
before the Senate. That the power tj correct these evils is beyond the control of State 
authorities I do not doubt; that the power of the Executive of the United Sutes, acting 
within the limits of existing laws, is sufficient for present emergencies, is not clear. 
Therefore I urgently recommend such legislation as in the judgment of Congress shall 
effectually swcnre life, libertv, and property, and the enforcement of law in all parts of 
the United States." 

Four years later still, under date- of January 10, 1875, General Phil. Sheridan, a com- 
X^etent witness, I believe, before any loyal tribunal, says of Louisiana : 

"Since the year 18<;6 nearly thirty-five hundred persons, a great majority of whom 
were colored men, have been killed and wounded in this State lu ld6S the official 
record shows that eighteen hundred and eighty-four were killed and wounded. From 
If 68 to the present time no official investigation has been made, and the civil authorities 
in all but a few cases have been unable to arrest, convict, or punish the perpetrators. 
Consequently there are no correct records to be consulted for information. There is 
ample evidence, however, to show that more than twelve hundred persons have been 
killed and wounded during this time on account of their political sentiments. Fright- 
ful massacres have occurred in the parishes of Bossier, Caddo, Catahoula, Saint Bernard, 
Grant, and Orleans. ****•• 

"Human life in this State is held so cheaply that when men are killed on account of 
political opinion, the murderers are regarded rather as heroes than as criminals in the 
localities where they reside." 

One year later than this, to wit., on Decepiber 6, 1876, President Grant sent a message 
to Congress on the subject of Southern outrages, and with it a list of the men murdered, 
maimed, and whipped for opinion's sake in the single State of Louisiana. The list cov- 
ered a period of eight years, from 18(J8 to 1876. It gave the names of the victims, the 
names of the men who perpetrated the outrages, and the localities where the crimes 
were committed. The report named specifically over four thousand American citizens 
who had been either murdered, maimed, or scourged at the dictation of the proscriptive 
spirit which dominates the Democratic party of Louisiana; and yet no man guilty of 
these offenses had been punished therefor. 

But to come down from 1876 to a still later period, let me call your attention to a 
convention of colored men held in New Orleans, April, 1879, to consider the causes of 
the migration of colored people from Southern to Northern States. This convention 
made the foUovt'ing statement : 

" The primary cause of this wide-spread alarm among the colored people lies in the 
absence of a Kepublicau form of government to the people of Louisiana. Ciime and 
lawlessness existing to an extent that laughs at all restraint and the misgovernrnent 
naturally induced from a State administration itself the product of violence, have cre- 
ated an absorbing and constantly increasing distrust and alarm among our people 
throughout the State. All rights of freemen denied, and all claims to a just recompense 
for labor rendered or honorable dealings between planter and laborer disallowed, justice 
a mockery, and the laws a cheat, the very officers of the courts being themselves tho 
mobocrats and violators of law, the only remedy lefr, the colored citizen in many parishes 
of our State today is to emigrate. The fiat to go forth is irresistible. The constantly 
recurring, nay, ever present, fear which haunts the minds of these our people in the 
turbulent parishes of the State is that slavery in the horrible form of peonage is ap- 
proaching." 

In corroboration of tho statement made by this convention as to the spirit of the 
South, we have the testimony of prominent gentlemen of St. Louis, who examined the 



fugitives from Southern injustice as the latter were on their way to Kansas. la a me- 
morial to Congress, presented in 1879 and signed by Mayor Overholtz, a Democrat, Hon. 
John F. Dillon, a Judge of the United States District Court, ex -United States Senator 
J. B. Henderson, and nearly one hundred other leading citizens of St. Louis, the condition 
and grievances of the refugees are stated as follows : 

"The undersigned, yonr memorialists, respectfully represent that within the last two 
weeks there have come by steamboat up the Mississippi River from chielly the States of 
Louisiana and Mississippi, and landed at Saint Louis, Missouri, a great number of col- 
ored citizens of the United States, not less than twenty hundred, and composed of men 
and women, old and young, and with them many of their children. This multitude is 
eager to proceed to Kansas, and without exception, so far as we have learned, lefuse all 
overtures or inducements to return South, even if their passage back is paid for them. 

"We have taken occasion to examine into the causes they themselves assign for their 
extraordinary and unexpected transit, and beg leave to submit herewith the written 
statements of a number of individuals of the refugees, which were taken without any 
effort to have one thing said more than another, and to express the sense of the witness 
in his own language as nearly as possible. 

"The story is about the same in each instance. Great privation and want from excess- 
ive rent exacted for land, connected with murder of colored neighbors aud threats of 
personal violence to themselves. The tone of each statement is that of suffering and 
terror. Election days and Christmas, by the concurrent testimony, seem to have been 
appropriated to killing the smart men, while robbery and personal violence in one form 
and another seem to have run the year round. 

"Here they are in multitudes, not men alone but women and children, old, middle- 
aged, and young, Avith common consent leaving their old homes in a natural climate 
and facing storms and unknown dangers to go to northern Kansas. Why 1 Among them 
all there is little said of hope in the future; it is ail of fear in the past. They are not 
drawn by the attractions of Kansas; they are driven by the terrors of Mississippi and 
Louisiana. Whatever becomes of them, they are unanimous in their unalterable deter- 
mination not to return. j. «.• 

"There are others coming. Those who have come and gone on to Kansas must suiter 
even unto death, we fear— at all events more than any body of people entitled to liberty 
and law, the possession of property, the right to vote and the pursuit of happiness 
should be compelled to suffer under a free government, from terror inspired by robbery, 
threats, assaults, and murders. j • j. 

"We protest against the dire necessities that have impelled this exodus, and against 
the violation of common right, natural and constitutional, proven to be of most frequent 
occurrence in places named; and we ask such action at the hands of our Representa- 
tives and our Government as shall investigate the full extent of the causes leading to 
this unnatural state of affairs, protect the people from its continuance, and not only 
protect liberty and life, but enforce law and order. j, ^, a ^.x, 

"It is intolerable to believe that with the increased representation of the Southern 
States in Congress those shall not be allowed freely to cast their ballots, upon whose 
right to vote that representation has been enlarged. We believe no government can 
prosper that will allow such a state of injustice to the body of its people to exist, any 
more than society can endure where violence and murder go unchallenged. 

Let no man go away from here and affirm that this is a partizan statement and there- 
fore unworthy of belief. It was made by a Democratic mayor of St. Louis, by an ex- 
United States Senator notorious for his independence of party ties, by an honored Judge 
of the United States District Court, and by nearly one hundred other citizens, as respect- 
able and as responsible as can be found in any city on the conlineut; all ot whom bear 
witness in the face of the world to the fact that these American citizens-tjiese hus- 
bands, wives, and fathers— were not drawn from the homes of their childhood and the 
graves of their kindred by the attractions of the North, but were driven from them by 
the terrors of the South. , , . , -i ■ ^.^ ^ 

As one further illustration of the spirit of shameless intolerance winch prevails m the 
. solid South, per^iit me to quote a paragraph from the sjieech made by General M. C. 
Butler, at Bennettsville, South Carolina, a few days ago. He said : 

" Look at Long-street ; he was begged and implored not to persevere in his course, 
but he drifted on and on, and floundered deeper and deeper into the mire until he 
landed head aud foot into the Republican slough. And wliat has he gained ? Scorn, 
ohTKACisM, ODIUM, iLi. WILL— worhe than all, the contempt ot the men that stood by 

him under the shower of death and destruction." a., _ ,•„ +i,„ 

Do we treat a Democrat, a Greenbacker, a Prohibitionist, a Republican, thus in the 
North ? No no ; we scorn no man for standing by his convictions ; we ostracise no man 
on account of his political opinions ; we cover no man wi^th oi'ium, ill^^" 'y)^^^^^"- 
temnt because he speaks and votes as he pleases. But in the solid South ^^ey have tne 
Bhot"-gun and bull whip for the colored man who desires to vote the Republican licKet. 



Scorn, ostracism, odimu, and contempt for the white Republican who dares to assert his 
opinions. In the North, thank God, where Republican majorities are largest, speech, 
votes, and political action are fr. est. 

I miglit go fdrlher, and adduce other evidence, more than you have the patience to 
hear, or I the vstreiigth to read, all g'oiug to show that the South is howtile to free speech, 
free schools, fair elections, and fair pla,y. I could show yon how Northern ministers 
of the gospel, white men at that, have been scourged in the IHouth for teaching in the 
negro schools and preaching in colored churches. I could show you how, under the 
laws of Texas and Mississi})pi, o> lored men and women are arrested on some frivolous 
charge, convicted, fined, imprisoned, and then hired out to cotton planters at from one- 
fourth of a cent to twent.v-five cents per day. In this conuecuon permit me to read 
an extract from the tesliruouy of William Ruby, a witness summoned last winter at the 
instance of the Democratic uiembers of the tjenate Committee to investigate the exodus. 
He said : 

"They call these peoplo county convicts, and if yon have gf:t a farm you can go and 
hire them out of the jail. Th^-y have got that system, and the colored men olject to it. 
I know some of thete men who have State convicts that they hire aud work them under 
shot-guns. A farmer hires so mauj' ef the fttate, and they are under the supervision of 
a sergeant with a gnn and Liigi'er-hounds, to run them wi h if they get aW'Sy. They 
hire them and put them in the same gang wit*' the striped suit on, aud, if they want, 
the guard can briug them down w ith his shot-guu. Then they have these nigger- 
hounds, and if one of them gets oti'and they can't find him, they tske the hounds, aud 
from a shoe, or anything of the kind belonging to the convict, they trail him down." 

" Q. Are these the same sort of blood-hounds they used to have to run the negroes 
with ? " 

"A. Yes, sir." 

Is it strange that laboring mpn should tlee terror-.^tricken from such a country ? I 
repeat that 1 could flood you with documentary evidence all going to show the brutal 
and intolerant spirit of the South — not what it was in 1866 merely, but what it was in 
'70, '75, '79, and is to-day, but instead of wearying you by further recital of testimony 
on this point, I now and here challenge any man to stand up and deny any of the 
statements made, either by the witnesses or by myself. Can any one present say that 
such witnesses as Generals Thomas, Howard, Grant, Sheridan, ex Senator Henderson, 
Judge Dillon, and Mayor Overholtz, would not be believed by any Democratic jury of 
Miami county ? If, therefore, you cannot impeach the witnesses, how can you aroid 
admitting the facts to which they testify, and if you admit the facts, how can you, as 
good citizens, seek to put the Government into the hands of men who are animited, 
governed, and controlled by this spirit of murderous proscription, so intolerable to the 
poor and so dangerous to the country ? 

II. 

I have thus far spoken simply of the spirit of the South, and have only indirectly 
alluded to the 

POLITICAL METHODS 

of that section. I propose now, with your permission, to consider this subject as 
briefly as I can. 

The attention of one traveling through the forest lands oj" the parish of St. Landry, La., 
in 1H68, was drawn to a cloud of buzzards hoVeriug over some olject Jiot far from the 
public highway. Curiosity impelled him to ascertain what attracted them to the 
place, and going thither he found in one pile the decaying bodies of twenty-five 
negroes. These constituted but a small portion of the men who had been slaughtered in 
the six days' political campaign, which had occured in that parish a few days prior 
to the last election. In this campaijiu the only persons killed or wounded were 
colored men and Republicans. They had been hunted like wild beasts through field 
aud forest; between 'hree and four hundred had been killed outright, and although 
there was in that pari.'-h a regibtered Republican majority of 1071, nor, a single Repub- 
lican vote was cast on the day of election. 

In the parish of Bossier, La., in .September, If-OH, two hnrdied colored people were 
killed, and although there were llCIs Republican votes in the parish, only one Republi- 
can vote found its way info the ballot bi'X on election day. in the pari.-sh of Caddo, La., 
during the month of October, lh'(5"i, forty colored people were killed, and out of a reg- 
istered Republican vote of 2^y4, only one was cast for the Republican ticket. 

How would yon like, my friends, to have ibis method of electing Congressmen intro- 
duced into the North ? Does this mode of discussing political qutstions strike you as 
fair and honest ? Is this method of achieving Democratic victories saiisfactoiy to the 
Northern Democratic conscience ? i hojie not, in fact I know it is not, to the great 
majority of Northern IDemocrats, aud yet can you name a single Democratic leader who 
has ever denounced these outrages from the stump in Ohio ? ot one ! By silence, at 
least, they consent to, if they do not by words, encourage this brutal method of attain- 
ing political ends. 



6 

We have on record tbe confession of sixteen men of Almance connty, North Carolina, 
who belonged to one of these secret Democratic organizations. They say : 

"This organization in the ontset, as we understood it, was purely political, and for 
the mutual protection of tbe members thereof and their families; but since joining we 
have been pained to know that, while the objects of the organization were to attain cer- 
tain political ends, the means used and resorted to were such as would shock a civilized 
and enlightened people." 

By the testimony of General N. B. Forest and others we ascertain that these secret 
Democratic organizations extt^nded into every State and coiiaty of the South, ard, as 
an illusiration of the manner in which they operated, I clip from a great mass of cor- 
roborating evidence the testimony of William K Tolbert, who, in 1868, was a member 
of a Democratic club in Abbeville county, South Carolina : 

" Question. Was there anv secret organization connected with these clubs ? 

"Answer. Yes, sir; committees were apjioiuled which met in tecret, and they ap- 
pointed men to patrol in each difi'«rent neighborhood. 

" Question. For what purpose were thche men appointed to patrol ? 

" Answer. To find out where the negroes were holding Union Leagues, 

" Question. They were instructed, you say, to patrol these neighborhoods ; what 
other instructions had they, if any V 

"Answer. To break them up; kill the leader; fire into them and kill the leader if 
they could. 

"Question. Were there any other instructions given to these committees by the 
Democratic clubs in relation to the election to be held on the third of November ? 

"Answer. Yes, sir. The day before the election the tickets were taken away from 
the Eopublican party, from those who had charge of the tickets, by these committees. 
The committees were tearching for them the night before the election, taking them 
wherever they could find them. I was one of the gang myself. Ten or eleven were 
with me. I was a member of the committee myself. Destroyed the tickets. All of us 
were armed. 

" Question. What were jour instructions if the persons having the tickets in charge 
refused to give them up ? 

" Answer. Shoot them and take them by force." 

This is the way they achieve Democratic victories in the Democratic South! 

Again : 

" Question. Did the Democrats come to the Whitehall polling precinct armed on the 
day of the election ? 

" Answer. Every one, so far as I know. It was a general understanding throughout 
the county that all were to go armed. 

" Question. State what occurred at Greenwood j)recinct up to the time vou left to go 
to Whitehall. 

" Answer. Well, the negroes, to the number of about four hundred voters, in Abbe- 
ville county, assembled about one hundred and fifty yards from the polls. The white 
men, Democrats, wore all around the door. Captain J. G. Boozer was sitting right by 
the door to examine the tickets. D.>n't know whether Boozer was appointed. He was 
there for that business. Two Republicans, colored men, came up to vote. They came 
from the main body. He said : ' Let me see your papers.' They pulled ottt the Repub- 
lican tickets with Hoge's name on them for Congress. He told them that they could 
not vote them sort there ; they would have to go somewhere else to vote those papers. 
Boozer was armed. 'J'hey turned back to the main body, who saw th.nt there was no 
chance to vote, so they disbanded and went home, about tour hundred ot them, all voters 
in Abbeville county." 

Last winter William Murrell, a witness called by the Senate Committee to investigate 
the causes of the migration of colored people, under oath, said, in substance, that ha 
resided in Mail son pari.'^h, Louisiana ; that in the parish there were 2,700 registered 
coloted voters, and but '2:58 white voters ; that Ibe parish had been Republican ; but that 
on the USth of December, Ifi'H, just betore tlie time for holding the election, oruied bodies 
of men came i-ito Madison parish from the parishes of Morehouse, Richland, and Frank- 
lin, and by threats of violence converled the j>ari>-h of Madison, where there were 2,700 
colored voters and only '2'S8 white voters, into a Democratic parish ; and, although but 
oCO votes were cast at the election, the Democratic candidates claimed to have received a 
majority of :;>,;500. Here, as everywhere in the South, there were armed men at the 
polls to intimidate tlie voter, but as they wtire the gray, and not the blue, our Demo- 
cratic friends did not and do not olject. They himply protest against the United States 
soldier, whose duty it is to preserve peace at the polls, and secure a fair election, not 
against the Confederate soldier, whose business it is to threaten, scourge, and kill in 
the interest of his fiarty. 

I have referred to this testimony, and quoted portions of it in detail, to illustrate, and 
thus impress upon your minds, the brutal means used to obtain Democratic victoiies in 



the South. I might continue to quote testimony for a week — testimony which no man 
can successfully dispute — all proving beyond a peradventure that the South is ruled by 
force and fraud. I might refer in detail to the horrible circumstances of the Chisholm 
masacre ; to the deliberate murder of Dixon because he dared to announce himself as an 
independent candidate for sheriff; to the recent threatened assassination and compulsory 
flight of a deputy collector of customs who dared to make a Republican speech in Texas ; 
to the maltreatment and expulsion ot Randall, a greenback orator, from Mississippi; but 
I cannot dwell longer on details. Permit me to show you at a glance what the aolid 
South has a,ccomplished by these 

VILLAINOUS METHODS. 

In Louisiana there are 84,000 Republicans, not one of whom dares vote for the candi- 
date of bis choice; in Georgia there are 93,000 disfranchised; in Alabama 90,000 who 
dare neither speak, organize, nor vote ; ia North Carolina 96,000 who are deterred 
by the shot-gun and bull whip from the exercise of the rights guaranteed to them by the 
Constitution ; in South Carolina there are 80,000, and in Mhssissippi 60,000 citizens — 
qualified electors — loyal aud peaceable men — who have no rights that an ex-Confederate 
soldier is bound to respect. In Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Florida, aad 
Te^as a similar condition of affairs exists. Many of these Southern States, on a fair 
vote, would be o-erwhelmingly Republican. Take, as an illustration of the potency of 
fraud and violence when used as political factors, the Fourth Congressional District of 
Mississippi. In ld72 the Democrats polled 8,870 votes and the Republicans 1,'S,950 votes. 
In 1878 the Democrats polled 4,025 and the Republicans none at all. Oar Democratic 
friends of the North cannot say that the Republicans of 1872 had become converted and 
therefore voted the Democratic ticket in 1878, because if this had been the case the 
Democratic vote of 1878 would have been larger than it was in 1872, instead of beinw 
smaller. Here, as you see, is a district having, on a fair election, a Republican majority 
of over G,000, where not one solitary Republican vote is cast The man who represents 
that district in Congress is a usurper, who has neither a legal nor an equitable right to 
the seat he occupies ; he is indebted to the shot-gun and bull-whip for it, and not to the 
ballots of freemen. In fact the shot-gun and bull-whip have put ten men into the Uni- 
ted States Senate and thirty or forty men into the House of Representatives. The shot- 
gun and bull-whip have given the Democratic party its majorities in the two Houses of 
Congress ; the shot-gun and bull-whip have enabled the South to dictate the legislation 
of the country. 

There .-ire thirty Democratic Senators from thd South and only twelve from the North ; 
the South therefore controls in the Senate caucuses. There are one hundred Democratic 
members in the House of Reprentatives from the South and but tifty-five from the North, 
so the South controls in the House caucus xnd in the joint caucuses of the two Houses, 
and thus, on all matters of party policy or legislation, the solid South is now omnipo- 
tent in Congress, as it would be in every department of the Government if the Dem- 
ocratic party should succeed in November. 

Are you satisfied, my friends? Shall the great North, which has the population, the 
intelligence, the wealth, the energy of the country, and pays nine-tenths of its reve- 
nues, surrender control of the Government to a section notorious for its disloyalty, 
ignorance, and crime— to a party which secures its majorities through fraud and vio- 
lence? 

III. 

I have thus far spoken of the political spirit of the South, its political methods, and 
of the results accomplished by those methods. Let me now say a word in regard to 
the ° 

GREAT PURPOSE OF THE SOUTH, 

The goal, the end for which the white people of that section are strnggling. In the 
light ot t^he testimony submitted it would be useless for any one to attempt to disguise 
the tact that there is now a struggle between sections, another phase of that conflict 
which took place from '61 to '65, founded upon the same general ideas, prompted by the 
same prejudices and passions, and carried forward in the South by substantially the 
same methods. It is a Solid South vtrsus a Solid North. The South is stronger to-day, 
politically, than it was before the war ; the white people of that section have lost their 
slaves, indeed, but they have gained by that loss thirty additional representatives in 
the National Congress, and the same number in the Electoral Colleges, and, although 
Tx^^Ju i^Tf "'^"anchised the freedmen, they yet cling to their increased representation. 
With liill control of Congress and the Executive, what would they do T 

1. They would cut up Texas into five States, and thus gain eight additional Sena- 
tors, and virtually secure to the South, for all time, full control of the United States 
oenate. 



8 

2. They would reorganize the Snpreme Court and then sweep away the later ameud- 
ments to the Constitution. 

3. They would put the Confederate soldiers on the pension rolls, provide for the pay- 
ment of the rebel debt, and of Southern claims. 

4. They would declare the Emancipation Proclamation and the reconstruction acts 
of Congress unconstitutional, revolutionary and void, and demand payment for lost 
slaves. 

But some Democratic friend thinks this would be impossible. That if a Democratic 
administration were to do all this, the Democratic party would be hurled from power at 
the next election. How, my friends'? If you trust the Democratic party now, you will 
trust it once too often. The joint resolution by which Texas was annexed provides 
thatCougrens may divide the territory embraced within its present lioiits into live States. 
It will make five States ae large, territorially, as Pennsylvania. This division — and Con- 
gress and the President have the right apd the power to make it at any time — would, as 
1 have bf fore stated, give the Soutli eight more Senators, forty in all, and only making it nee- ^. 
cessary to obtain the votes of one Democratic State in the North to tecure absolute control 
of the Senate. No obnoxious law could be repoalfd without the consent of this Senate. No 
law could be passed without its concurrence. It would be in position to dictate both as 
to legislation and appointments. No new State could be admitted ; no treaty made; no 
joint resolution passed; no postmaster or revenue o£(3cer appoiuted without its permis- 
sion. The Negro might be ro enslaved by the States, and there would be no remedy 
save in revolution. A system of peonage might be established, worse even than slavery, 
under which thetreedmen would be guarded by tihot-guus while they worked, and hunted 
by bloodhounds when they ran away, and the North, unless absolutely solid, would be 
powerless to protect. 

With the Senate in possession of the South, what can the North do? The President 
may be a Republican, the House may have a two-thirds Republicau majority, the popular 
vote may be overwhelmingly Repnldican, but there stands ihe Southert! Senate to dic- 
tate to all; to revise every law; to bargain about every appointment; to pass upon 
every appropriation ; to demand what it wants for the South, and obtaia it or obstruct 
all legislation. 

This, fellow-citizens, is the lost cause revived It is better to the South thau the lost 
cause could have been, because it affords greater advantages. It comprehends all that 
that did, and goes far beyond. It puts the purse of the North within easy reach of the 
indolent and impoverished South. It inderanilics the South for the past, and gives it 
security for the future. It places the South iu ^losirion to say to us: " Yield to our de- 
mands or rebel ; take this or nothing ; submit to our dictation or the machinery of the 
Government shall stop ; you have much to lose by war, we have little ; break the peace 
if you dare." This would be the end of free government on this continent, and the be- 
ginning of life tenures of office for Southern SenatOB and Democratic appointees. This 
18 what Wade Hampton meant when he assured the Virginians the other day, at Staun- 
ton, that the Democratic party was struggling for the same principles for which Lee 
and Stonewall Jackson fought. It ia for this great end that the South has been solidi- 
fied. Stimulated by the hope of grasping this prize, and achieving this great victory 
over the North, the Confederate army is marching to the polls in solid column, followed 
by every man who lost a cotton bale; by every master who lost a slave; by every 
planter who lost a mule; by every gauibler, pimp, and thief, who prides himself on 
being better than a Negro ; by every rufSan whose business it was to m.ike jnerchaudise 
of men; by every brutal overseer who cut and slashen the laboring poor; by every 
canting hypocrite who taught that slavery was of God ; by every cowardly assassin who 
has raised his hand to strike down free speech ; by every sneaking scoundrel who has 
cheated the popular will by tissue ballots. 

Men of the North, will you meet them ? Will you defeat them ? I believe you will. 
I know you will. Whatever your party ties may have been, you should forget them 
now. You have no interests that the success of the Republican party will not promote. 
Stand for the civilization of the North ; for its free schools, free speech, free ballots, and 
free men ! Stand by the i>arty whose record is full of generous deeds and magnificent 
achievements ! Whose aim has ever been to elevate the poor, and secure equality of 
rights to all. 

" My friends, if you can but wait all will be well. If any of us die before the day of 
peace and liberty dawns, let us die in the faith that it will come at last. * . * * 1 am 
not of those who accept the situation. # # * i don't believe I did wrong, and there- 
fore I don't acknowledge it." — Jvff Davis, at Atlanta, 1871. 

"Consider what Lee and Jackson would do were they alive, These are the same prin- 
ciples for which they fought four years.'' — If'ade nampton, at Staunton, 1880. 

" * Yank,' or no ' Yank,' if elected the old boys of the South will see that Hancock doe 
the fair thing. He will run the machine to suit them, oc they will run the thing theui 
selves." — Robert f'oomba, of Georgia. 



